


but my heart told my head, this time no

by enemeriad



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Donna Paulsen deserves nice things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2521112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enemeriad/pseuds/enemeriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna is willing to love Harvey, to be brave as he never was, but she wonders if she can what she needs to do in order to be happy herself</p>
            </blockquote>





	but my heart told my head, this time no

1\. (You are in a car with a beautiful boy and he won't tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.)

To Donna it's always been simple. Harvey will never tell her he loves her but he loves her and maybe it's not the way Rachel wants, or Jessica had but it's built on more than repressed sexual desire. 

It remains key to her that they are each others emergency contact, that he's seen at her worst and she's seen him at his best, that that she can count on Harvey even though she can not depend on him the way he depends on her.

But that's okay. She is the stronger one of the two, in some situations the smarter, and in most cases, the braver. 

Donna is willing to love. For better or for worse. 

 

2\. (And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you're tired.)

His hands splay against her ribs, her hands raking through gelled hair and his lips taste like rain. She shifts on top of him, her skirt caught on her hips, her silk shirt pooling at her waist and he says her name with just enough irreverence that she believes him. His hands move to her jaw, and he just stops, stares at her and the moment seemes to sit in the air, like he's waiting for her to say something. 

And she can see it, three words eight letters etching themselves into the dimming grimace. 

'I thought so,' he whispers and she wants to hate him for sounding disappointed. 

Instead, her eyes close, bruising over burnt tears as she gets up and nods. Time has restarted. Deep breaths. A pause.

'It was what it was.'

He watches her for a while, careful with his reply like he knows that the air is loaded with the possibilities of cruelty. 

'It was a mistake.'

She nods, watches his eyes crinkle, she's taken 3 years of his life and he's given her nothing. Expects so much and gives nothing. 

She pulls down her skirt, adjusts her wrap-top and sighs. 

'We go back to how we were?' She asks, but her voice cracks over the past tense and he frowns, tensing and then shakes his head. 

'It's not going to work like that,' he tells her like this is consolatory, like rejection doesn't sting just as much as his silence when she'd told him what she had. 

Donna shrugs, plays it off. 'The new normal,' she tells him with a half smile, moving towards the door. 

'Donna,' he breathes and she means to move away but she miscalculates his strides and he's standing in front of her, placing his hands on her arms and slipping her apartment key back into her palm. 'This is us,' he tells her like that means something. 'This is who we are. I.. think it's supposed to be like this.'

Pain and not enoughs and missed opportunities and never ever evers and Harvey's inability to commit to the long term and Donna's fear of the unknown and the timing and the constant exhaustion that comes with emotional combat at this level, for this amount of time.

She nods, winks at him and slips back into her shoes. 'Come on. I'm tired.' He leads her out of the room, his hand pressed to her lower back and it's hot and clammy and she feels uncomfortable thinking about what it means.

 

 

3\. ( you're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling. ) 

Donna dreamt of getting married and a picket fence and 3 children, soccer practice and ballet recitals. She used to image braiding hair and whispering bed time stories and small feet on floorboards. But the constellations didn't quite align in that fashion. 

Instead she sits at a desk in the centre of an office, a self-possessed and intelligent woman in a cubicle that she never felt like she fit in. Stuffed herself into because it was what Harvey needed and now with all their messy never, evers she looks at the edges, the memories in the woodwork and doesn't like the way it looks like determination and loyalty but feels like rejection and betrayal. 

Her fingertips trace the side of her desk and they catch on a dent in the rosewood and she closes her eyes, sees the laura ashley drapery and paint swatches flicker, dim. She thinks it's stupid, that she cares this much about childish dreams but her seventeen year old self tells her that if she gives all that up, she's still left in a job that doesn't make her get up in the morning because it's all about the person she's working for. 

She watches him a little while, trying to depress the feelings of 'how could you/you're better than this/you love yourself more than this/swallowgulpdrag down those feelings so you don't drown under them' and remembers how she wanted to work in recruitment and travel and head hunt and be. 

Pearson Hardman, for ten years, was a pipe dream that didn't belong to her.

 

 

4\. ( and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist.)

It takes a few weeks until eventually her negativity gives way to a sense of determination. She enters Harvey's office and all the well-placed integrity leaves her. Her knees lock together and she's smoothing down her skirt. 

'Donna?'

She nods, hums out a reply and shifts. And suddenly this is no longer about jobs or careers or anything it's about being happy. She stares at him, it all crystalising in front of her and she shakes her head. 

'I'm so sorry Harvey.'

'Donna..' and he's getting up and walking around his desk looking at her like he knows the news is going to be bad. 'Donna..'

'I don't think it's enough,' She whispers after a beat, tripping over her words in the quiet. 

'I'm sorry,' he says and she thinks that he does mean it. 'I don't think we were supposed to work like that.'

And she knows, she knows, watches him close his eyes with a small smile and shrugs. 'Harvey, you will always be you. We were never supposed to be an us.'

He opens his eyes, and for a minute she thinks he's angry, thinks his shallow breathing is an indication of his rebuttal, can see his objection sketched out in vague arguments and conjecture. 

'I don't want you to think it was because of you.' He tries a smile, contorting his face where she knows his heart doesn't mean it and then he pulls her to him and she tenses, muscles requisitioning their previous physical barriers. But they stay like that for a long time before she relaxes and he pulls back to kiss her temple. 

'You're leaving the firm aren't you? That's why you came in here with this today. You've decided to move on.'

All the depravity in the world coudn't surmise the way she feels in that moment like tiny glass pieces shatter in her eyes as his face drops, as his shoulders shake out his foundation and he watches her for a moment before he nods, leans back on his desk and his palms are open to her like a symbol of his surrender. 

'Donna, you know that it'll only ever be you, right? There's no one else, and there never will be. Not like you. Never like you. I want you to be happy but I don't want you to leave.'

He laughs, bitterness framing his face. 'Please stay, Donna. Please. You know I can't do any of this without you.'

But she shakes her head, the lump in her throat settling deep in her stomach or her heart or something it feels like her insides are being stretched and turned and ripped apart and she didn't think it would be this hard. 

She wants to tell him so many things, wants to make it better, but she thinks that sugar won't make the truth taste any better. 

'Harvey,' she tells him, quietly so it doesn't puncture him like it probably could. 'You've been doing this without me since the beginning. And now it's time you learnt to accept that.'

And he sees them then as she does as two halves of two different wholes and maybe at a different time with different lives they could've maybe done it but Harvey has spent too much of his life pretending he needs her while simultaneously shutting her out. 

'What if I say it?' he mumbles, gets up again, prepares to make his closing arguments. 'Please, just.. let me fix it.'

And she's struck, feels the words blister and sighs at the fact that he even thinks that his sellotape and paste glue are going to make them any less painful.

 

5\. (and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for. )

Rachel is the only person at the firm that is happy for her. Tears brimming around her glasses she hugs her and laughs into her hair and breathes out a sigh of relief, tells her everything she already knows and smiles fiercely. 

'I want you to come back and work for us when you're happy.'

Donna sees her naivety and smiles, nods, yes, reconsiders on her pessimism, because maybe that's what she needs. A little faith in the ability for happiness to come not from a begrudging acceptance of circumstances and a 'make the best of' attitude, but from a sense of fulfillment and achievement and that she did this by herself and for herself. 

Her finger tips tingle in anticipation and she while she hasn't been able to work up to a smile quite yet, she knows that when she gets there it'll be worth it. 

 

 

6\. ( if we wanted to tell you everything we would leave more footprints in the snow, or kiss you harder. )

It doesn't actually take her a long time to find a job, the market is recovering and trying to balance itself agains the redundancies of the past five years. But it takes her a while to fit. 

Her insides twist when she thinks too much about the past. About Harvey. She doesn't like to let herself stop for too long or her mind wanders to the smell of imported italian coffee and a bright cityscape she doesn't see from her apartment window. She wants to think that in time she won't look at it with the ugly bitter stains all over it. She wants to think that maybe she'll be able to salvage their friendship and in time, they'll be able to come back to square one and try again. 

But mainly, mainly Donna wants to think she'll be able to love herself as much as she loved Harvey Specter.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Charlotte, because she always knew what to say.


End file.
